They sent me a new mug.
While I enjoy my weekly issue of Chemical & Engineering News — which, I imagine, most ACS members see as the most tangible benefit of their membership — I must confess that I really love the mugs.

Last year, for my second anniversary of membership, they sent me a mug with helium (element 2) on it. This year, the third anniversary, it’s lithium (element 3). On the first anniversary, there wasn’t a hydrogen mug, but rather a pop-up card featuring hydrogen.

So, the thoughts in my mind as I’m opening the package from the ACS that contains the new mug:

Damn! I totally didn’t need to wash those three dirty mugs this morning, since now I have a clean mug delivered to me.

Hmm. To get a full set of these mugs, I’m going to have to live (and pay dues to the ACS) a very long time.

Of course, they’ll need to hammer out an official name for element 118 before they can produce that mug.

The Li mug has made no noticable difference in my mood (which seems more dependent on what I drink out of that mug). As well, the He mug didn’t give me a higher voice. Both, however, make my shelf of tea and mugs look substantially nerdier than it would otherwise.

Same here. Never received anything free from the ACS. I recently got a card that says congrats on your 15th yr and I was thinking, “a card???”. They should have just saved the paper and postage fee bec the whole thing went straight to the trash can.